HOUSTON, Texas — On Monday, KHOU 11 News spoke with frustrated neighbors in the Timbergrove area as they continue waiting for storm debris to be picked up.
Resident Andrea Garcia reached out saying she can’t get her gas line fixed because debris is blocking access to it.
“I think just to get this culdesac cleared, I think would take them days,” Garcia said.
She and many of her neighbors have piles of debris covering their sidewalks still waiting to be picked up.
“it took days to chop it all up and get it here,” she said.
Part of the debris pile includes a tree knocked over by strong derecho winds that hit the Houston area nearly three weeks ago.
“There was a really big pine tree right here. And when it fell, it's root ball pulled up our gas line,” said Garcia.
Andrea said CenterPoint can’t fix anything until the debris is gone.
“They’ve said oh, maybe we can get a crew out here just to like, not even take it away, but move it,” said Garcia. “They sympathize with us, and they've tried helping us, but I guess their hands are also tied, like this is a city issue.”
She’s called the city, but nothing’s been done.
“We've tried using the tracker. We've tried asking the trucks when we see them, but you know, they're just taking orders. They really can't do anything,” Garcia said.
She and her husband are trying to be patient, but they’re now going another week without gas.
“We can't take hot showers, we can't do laundry, we can't cook on our stove like it's not just unpleasant to look at, it’s extremely inconvenient,” said Garcia. “We're just getting a little exhausted.”
Andrea said her neighbors have helped by giving them griddles and other appliances they can cook with, but because they still don’t know when debris will be picked up, they got a gym membership to take hot showers.
KHOU 11 News reached out again to solid waste management. They said they’ll look into what’s going on here but still have no update on their debris tracker which is currently not working. They also said pick-up is expected to last two to three months.